Targeting your publics through

1. Targeting your publics through Media Relations

2. Topics covered • What is media relations • Characteristics of PR/media relationship • Developing media strategy • Understanding news media • What makes the news • How to get into the news, dos and don’ts!!!

3. Recommended Reading • Chapter 4 in Tench and Yeomans’ book By Washbourne: Media Context of Contemporary PR and Journalism pp. 62-76 • Chapter 16 Media Relations pp.312-330

4. Media Relations One of the foundations, one of the crucial areas of PR, because: • It is via the mass media that large dispersed audiences are reached, • media can shape and do shape agendas and act as gatekeepers

5. Agenda Setting Theory Maxwell/ McCoombs (1972) Agenda Setting is based on the assumption that although media can’t tell people what opinion to hold about an issue, they have an influence on what issues people think about.

6. The Influence of Agenda Setting • Agenda setting is based on the assumption that the media have the potential to • Build issue or product awareness • Increase issue salience

7. Media can put issues on the agenda • Bird-Flu • Danger through crime / Danger to children from strangers • Credit crunch??

8. Media Relations • The media pass information to the target audiences. • They act as filters. • They decide what’s important and what’s not (although they also have to listen to business constraints and are there to make profit!)

9. Characteristics of the PR/journalist relationship • Healthy disdain • Suspicion BUT: • Underlying acceptance of each other’s dependency

10. PR / journalist relationship & soundbites • Alistair Campbell, Labour spindoctor, was political editor on the Mirror and Deputy editor on Today before • He has shown great aptitude in soundbitespicked up by tabloids, his greatest one being the People’s Princess - Diana

11. Why the strong relationship? • News media (radio, tv, newspapers, magazines, Internet based media) are one of the best ways of getting news and information to the publics on a wider base • PR needs the media, and say what the media will, good stories received from organisations help them stay in business, too!

12. Impact of PR on the news production process 1) How much news content is primarily PR information? 2) Who is in charge /setting the agenda? (‘Conscious control?)

13. Gallup survey (1991) • 100 in-house PR managers • 26 editors of national press PRs believe 40 % news output is based on PR Editors estimated 25% within national newspapers, 53% in trade magazines

14. PRCA survey (1994) • Financial Times used PR most • The Times (16%) • Daily Mirror (14%) • Star (14%) • Independent (11%) • Guardian (10%) • Sun and Mail (9%) (source: Davis, 2002:28)

15. Media as the fourth estate • Media regard themselves as independent and operating in the public interest • Code of Conduct of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) ‘A journalist shall at all times defend the principle of the freedom of the press…He/she shall strive to eliminate distortion, news suppression and censorship’

16. Balance of power? • “The source-journalist relationship is therefore a tug of war: while sources attempt to manage the news …journalists concurrently ‘manage’ the sources in order to extract the information they want” (Gans, 1979:117)

17. Media Relations for an organisation - What’s the role? “The role of media relations is to achieve maximum publication or broadcasting of PR information in order to create knowledge or understanding”.

18. Media relations plans • Developing an effective news media relations plan can accomplish various goals: • Enhance the public’s knowledge and understanding of an issue/idea/product • It can build credibility for your organisation/ issue • Extend the reach and increase the frequency of your message

19. Media Relations plans • However, there are few things that media relations cannot achieve: • Eliminate the competition • Control the media or the media’s message • Eliminate negatives

20. Developing media strategy • You must develop a strategy in order to build an effective relationship. The relationship doesn’t just happen by itself. • You have to be proactive, which means going to the media instead of the media coming to you first!

21. Developing media strategy • Set realistic goals! • Decide on your approach to get your goals accomplished. • Decide who is responsible for fielding media calls/ do they need training? • Become a reputable and dependable source

22. Developing media strategy • Develop a media contact book for your office • This includes a directory of journalists that are relevant to the organisation • Make contact with them • Find out what their rules, constraints & preferences are for submitting information • Update the media contact book on a regular basis!!

23. Developing media strategy • Provide informational material on a regular basis to keep relationships up • This can include • Simple phone calls/meetings • News releases • Product information • Photographs • Website updates/blogs/taking part in specific Internet based discussions

24. Developing media strategy • Get to know the journalists in your area • Who covers your beat? • What type of journalists is best for the issues that might arise - Is it the local journo, business journo, etc?

25. Understanding the news media • One of the components is to become a reputable / expert source. • Hence, you should contribute news items to the media that are really newsworthy • What is newsworthy? • Often different understanding between journalists and people involved in a project.

26. What is news(worthy)? • The answer to this question is hotly contested and changes through time! • One wo(man)’s news is another’s irrelevance • What was considered news a hundred years ago is different today. • Some stories disappear without a trace and some “have legs”

27. What is news(worthy)? • Definitions: • “If a tree falls down in a forest with no-one there to hear it, does it make a noise?” • “News is whatever a good editor chooses to print” (A. McEwan, editor of San Francisco Examiner) • “News is people. It is people talking & people doing….always always tell a story through people” (Harold Evans, former Times editor) • “News is what people want to stop me from printing” (editor of Taunus Kurier)

28. Definition of news • News are • “Selected topics of deviation from the norm…. • which are temporary … • and move fast!

29. What is news(worthy?) • Reuters news agency: • “…fires, explosions, floods, railway accidents, destructive storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks, accidents…street riots…strikes..the suicide of persons of note, political or social, and murders of a sensational or atrocious character! • And that was in 1883!!!

30. What is news(worthy)? • Dennis MacShane (1979) Using the media: • Conflict • Hardship or danger to the community • Unusualness (oddity,novelty) • Scandal • Individualism

31. What is news(worthy)? • Is the information significant (on a local/national/international level) • How many are involved/how much money is involved (numbers)? • How many readers /viewers can benefit from it (product/service orientated)? • Is the information likely to be accurate?

32. Take some examples • Your country needs you - to halt relentless march of the grey squirrels JAMES KIRKUP (Scotsman, 10/10/06) • Unusualness • Oddity • Local significance • Animals

33. .. and now Kim has gone nuclear JAMES KIRKUP POLITICAL EDITOR, Scotsman, 10/10/06 • Conflict • Danger to community • International level • Big numbers • Oddity

34. Leftover jelly triggers German security alert BERLIN (Reuters) Scotsman, 10/10/06 - A small pile of leftover jelly discarded beside the road after a wedding party caused a large-scale security alert in Germany with biochemical experts, firemen and police called in to investigate • Oddity • Danger reference

35. Hetherington’s seismic scale of news for the Guardian • Significance - social, economic, political, human • Drama - the excitement, action, entertainment in the event • Surprise - the freshness, newness, unpredictability • Personalities -royal, political, showbiz, community

36. 5. Sex, scandal, crime 6. Numbers - the scale of the event, numbers of people affected, money involved 7. Proximity - on our doorsteps or 10.000 miles away 8. Visual attractiveness (for TV particularly)

37. Final tests of newsworthiness • Use the “Hey Doris test” (Sun journalist) • Use the “So what ….?” test • It is important to think as a journalist when providing stories not only to be able to give out stories, but also to spot danger signs and avoid damaging stories.

38. News for an organisation can be • A new product • An important new contract • A senior appointment • Major investment • Improved results • A major campaign or project • Research findings • Merger or acquisition • A major staff success

39. Essential points to know about the media • The editorial policy - e.g. the journals outlook and the kind of material it prints. E.g. does the newspaper print regularly details of business appointments • Political affiliation • Frequency of publication • Copy date • Circulation area • Readership/Audience profile • Distribution method

40. Where to look for this info? • Guardian media directory lists the addresses, phone numbers, websites and key personnel for companies in every sector of the media, from digital television to magazines, regional newspapers to publishing houses, think tanks to charities. This new edition is fully updated, contains over 10,000 contacts

41. Hollis PR directory • Information on media, PR agencies, etc

42. Benn’s media directory Available in Library List of contacts

43. Getting it right: What do journalists want? • What to know about the news gathering process: Ground rules and handy hints • “Spoon feeding” (help create news by providing handy summaries & crib sheets & analysis of complex data) • “Speed kills” (understand that journalists are working to deadlines with editors breathing down their neck)

44. Different information is required at different stages: • As a news story develops, the angle of the story can be altered by new information on a minute by minute basis • The way journalists use interviews during the cycle changes hour by hour, minute by minute or day by day.

45. Example:Explosion like an 'earthquake’ (Stockline Plastics factory Glasgow) • The scene following a major explosion in Glasgow was compared to an earthquake by firefighters battling to free those trapped beneath the rubble

46. Timeline of reporting • In a disaster situation the first bulletins feature eye witnesses. • Later bulletins feature interviews with emergency services. • Later on, there will be interviews with spokespeople. • Even later (e.g. analysis programmes such as Newsnight) will feature experts on safety, terrorism etc whatever the disaster/problem

47. More questions of speed and timing • PR people need to understand reporters varied demands for info • For a huge story, front pages can be altered, but this is the extreme exception and not the rule (and unlikely to be PR) • Arrange your news so that they can be covered well in advance of areporter’s deadline

48. Examples • Daily newspaper: later afternoon previous day the very latest! • Sunday paper: Friday at the very latest • Weekly magazines 3-4 days in advance, but features might be decided weeks before that • Glossy magazines are designed several months in advance

49. Scheduling • Other events are happening, so you need to keep a diary of important events throughout the year • Research annual events, competitors, local community events, etc • If you know its general election time next Thursday, don’t schedule a product launch for that day or even week as a sure-fire news coverage event • “Dead news times” might work to your advantage (e.g. Summer, after x-mas, Mondays)

50. Honesty is the only policy! • Credibility is everything and this is gained through trust. • Lying destroys trust. • You have to be truthful at all times which is not to say, you have to reveal everything at once! • Example: ex-home secretary Jack Straw’ son being arrested for cannabis purchase